June 26 Referendum

May 25, 1986

DUBLIN, IRELAND — Five years would have to pass. A court would have to find that the marriage had failed. These are provisions of the divorce proposal that will go to Irish voters June 26. The Senate completed legislative action Saturday. Prime Minister Garrett FitzGerald's government is pressing for an end to the constitutional ban on divorce. Supporters say that it would help as many as 70,000 people trapped in broken marriages and would help ease the anxieties of Protestants in Northern Ireland who are staunchly opposed to any type of union with the Irish Republic, 95 percent Catholic. Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church have spoken out against permitting divorce, but their opposition has been relatively mild. Ireland and Malta are the only European countries forbidding divorce.